Nenia
by miasnape
Summary: nenia ae, f. a funeral song, dirge an incantation lull nursery ditty, lullaby: a series of 100 word drabbles from multiple characters POVs in response to TWW Season 5
1. Drabble I: Nenia

SPOILERS: So far as I can see, none, but to be cautious I'll say all the way up to 'Memorial Day'

A/N - These one hundred word drabbles are, basically, a response to the current standard of the West Wing episodes, although even I'm not sure whether they're hopeful or condemning for the future of the show. The title for this first one is the Latin for either a lull or a funeral song (you can decide which is more appropriate) and there will be more from other characters' perspectives soon. And I think that's all the information you need about it. Feel free to comment or, you know, not.

Bartlet's POV

**Nenia**

It's gotten to the point where he's not sure it was worth all of the trauma and all of the drama.

They're sinking into the quicksand, and he's not sure whether they've given up struggling because they know it can only make the situation worse or if it's just because they've given up.

He likes to think that maybe they're waiting for something, some particular thing that will make them care again. Something that will make them care about whether Bartlet's being Bartlet or not.

And he's not.

And so, he begins to think about changing what 'Being Bartlet' means.


	2. Drabble II: Gingerbread

C.J.'s POV

**Gingerbread**

She's pretty sure that it was better for her before.

Not before it all, just before.

She laughed more, anyway.

Now she feels like Hansel or Gretel – which one was the girl again? She was never good at German – and the trail of victories she left behind her were just breadcrumbs, eaten by the birds.

They've travelled through these woods before, but then they had pebbles that shone in the moonlight to follow home, and they've never quite been this far in. It's darker this far into the woods.

She'll just have to remember not to eat the gingerbread house.


	3. Drabble III: Pilgrimage

Toby's POV

**Pilgrimage**

Toby's twins were three months old when he realised that he had never taken them to the White House.

When he had started there, the trip to work each day had almost felt sacred. Here he was, Toby Zeigler, working in the seat of the country's democracy every day.

With another election victory secured, the seat of democracy was just 'the office' to him. One bedecked with golden-framed presidents, but still 'the office'.

When Toby stood in the Roosevelt Room watching Molly and Huck's eyes shine at the red-white-and-blue, he found himself hoping that all he needed was fresh perspective.


	4. Drabble IV: The Wheel

Josh's POV

**The Wheel**

He thinks the problem now is a lack of trust. Trust, and the fact that if one of them were to leave now…

Sam left, and no one's even sure what he does now. If he were to leave, would anyone care, even after the next big crisis?

Everything they've done has led them further away from who they were, and he's not familiar with himself anymore never mind the others.

Of course, there's always the chance that the wheel of life will keep on turning and they'll find themselves back on top. But what if the wheel has stopped?


	5. Drabble V: Marked

Leo's POV

**Marked**

It's never the people leaving or adding themselves on that bother him; it's that the man himself has changed so much. The man who so resolutely believed in moral absolutes and imperatives.

Now serving seems more like a duty seen to, not reluctantly, but apprehensively. What fresh disaster will today bring, and more importantly how will he deal with it, and what will that say about how his basic character has changed?

He wonders if there's still life outside this soot-marked, white house.

He wonders if there's still life inside it.

He wonders which is more important to him now.


	6. Drabble VI: Aspirin

Donna's POV

**Aspirin**

She doesn't feel like a part of it anymore, not like she used to. She feels like it's made up of other people – people who are still new to it and don't know the way it began.

It's made of the people who don't realise how big of a gap there is between then and now.

Of course, it will always be a part of her, but she's made up of more than that these days.

She was so naïve when she started here – she had believed she would have to take iodine tablets.

Now she just needs an aspirin.


End file.
